Diamanda Galás - You Must Be Certain of the Devil

Diamanda Galás closes her Masque of the Red Death trilogy with You Must Be Certain of the Devil, a 1988 record that turns gospel and blues into weapons.

The trilogy was Galás's furious response to the AIDS epidemic and the cruelty that surrounded it, and this final instalment is its most song-based chapter. Recorded at Hansa in Berlin and co-produced with Gareth Jones for Mute, it finds her handling vocals, Hammond organ, piano, synthesizers and keyboard bass, with drummer Charlie Terstappen adding a steady, ominous pulse.

The material draws on American spirituals and blues forms, then pushes them somewhere far darker. "Swing Low Sweet Chariot" opens the album, the old spiritual recast as a lament for the dying, and "Let My People Go" turns a cry for freedom toward the crisis unfolding around her. "Double-Barrel Prayer" and the title track show off the extraordinary range of her voice, shifting from low, preacher-like growls to piercing shrieks, all of it controlled with frightening precision.

At barely over half an hour, it is concentrated and unforgiving, a work of protest as much as music. It remains one of the most powerful statements from a singer who has never softened her message for anyone, and it demands to be heard in full.